Description
What happens when contemporary space exploration outgrows Space Age modernity? In this volume, a collective of social scientists and humanities scholars provides an introduction to the emerging field of outer space studies. This is done by means of "otherwhere ethnography," richly detailed accounts of how space research and space enterprises are being rethought in an age where extraterrestrial exploration is no longer the monopoly of a handful of superpowers. While many off-Earth endeavours remain embedded within characteristically modern forms of thought--scientism, productivism, extractivism, (neo-)colonialism--there is also an emerging trend to move away from such ingrained conceptual frameworks. If one looks beyond the much-hyped projects of billionaire space gurus and their coterie of rocket-obsessed followers, one notices that Space Age modernity can also be thought otherwise, and that the very idea of "exploration" has already mutated into something else. Outer space studies can be envisaged as the antenna that seeks to capture this momentous, ongoing mutation.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgementsIntroductionPART 1: PROVINCIALIZING THE SPACE AGE - HISTORICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE EXPLORATION OF OUTER SPACEChapter 1. Spaced Out: Bringing Outer Spaces Into Anthropological ConversationsLisa Messeri and Valerie OlsonChapter 2. Blue Vegetation on the Red Planet: Soviet Astrobotany and Earthly Analogues for Life on MarsLuis CamposChapter 3. Styles of Contemporary Space Exploration. Columbian and Vespuccian Modes of Researching Alien WorldsIstvan PraetChapter 4. Provincializing Earth: Grounding and Writing Acknowledgments from Otherwheres in the CosmosDavid ValentineChapter 5. Knowledge Frontiers: Shaping African Futures through the Square Kilometre ArrayDavide Chinigò and Cherryl Walker PART 2: OTHERWHERE ETHNOGRAPHIES - ANALOGUES, INSTRUMENTS, ARTEFACTS, VIRUSES, VEGETABLESChapter 6. Between a Rock and a Hard Space: on Instrument Time and Communication in BASALTZara MirmalekChapter 7. The Restaurant at the End of the WorldAaron Parkhurst and David JeevendrampillaiChapter 8. "Welcome to Planet Mars": Analog-Making in Astrobiology and Planetary SciencesValentina MarcheselliChapter 9. Artefacts of AttunementVictor BuchliChapter 10. Space Virus 2020Stefan HelmreichReferencesNotes
